


Sweet On Me

by sinshine



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hidekane Week 2017, M/M, anxiety attack, day 4 - st valentines, day 5 - trick or treating, day 6 - visiting festival vendors, day 7 - ice cream on a hot day, pre-canon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-19 13:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11898855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinshine/pseuds/sinshine
Summary: Kaneki might, just slightly, hate Hide's valentine.





	1. Valentine's Day (spring)

Kaneki had chocolates.

They were store-bought because he didn't have the time or the kitchen space for homemade ones, but they were chocolates nonetheless. Kaneki had saved up his money and purchased chocolates from a store to give to a girl.

“So? How did it go?” Hide had waited by the school gates but that was where his patience ended. Kaneki would take too long to bring it up on his own, so it was up to Hide to get as much information out of him as possible during the walk home.

Kaneki ignored him and walked by without slowing. Hide caught up to him in a few quick strides and easily matched his pace. He stared at Kaneki and took note of his guarded expression, flushed face, and- oh, now he was frowning.

“Quit staring,” Kaneki said, quiet but firm.

“You didn't talk to her, huh?” Hide stretched his arms up and folded his hands behind his head.

“No,” Kaneki sighed. “I left the chocolates in her shoe locker.”

“Bummer.”

“The worst thing about it was that two other people had done the same thing. I had to wedge my third box in there.” Kaneki groaned and rubbed his hands over his face in agony.

Hide shrugged and tilted his head back to look at the clouds. “Well, better luck next year, I guess. Do you wanna go by Big Girl?”

“No. Wanna go to the park?”

“Only if we stop by the vending machines first.”

“Deal.”

They walked in silence for a few moments until Hide decided that it was a suspicious silence. He glanced over at Kaneki and found him staring back.

“Well?” Kaneki demanded.

“'Well,' what?”

“What about you?”

“Me?” Hide dropped his arms. Kaneki clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do?” Hide racked his brain for context clues but came up short.

“ _Your_ chocolates. The ones in your bag,” Kaneki said with no small amount of exasperation.

“Oh. You saw those.”

The best thing to do would be to lie about it. But for what other reason would Hide be carrying around a small ribbon-wrapped box on Valentine’s Day? Well, the next best thing would be a vague truth.

“That person likes someone else.”

“Oh,” Kaneki said gently.

They reached the line of vending machines and Hide went straight to the one for french fries. Today was a day for carbs. Once their bags were loaded with snacks and drinks, they continued down the street to the park.

“Who is it?” Kaneki asked once they were settled on a bench. Their beloved whale was being used for recreational activities by actual children.

“Does it matter?” Hide stuffed fries into his mouth.

“I guess not.” Kaneki popped open a can of over-sugared coffee. His eyes flickered down to Hide's hands and watched him reach into his bag for a candy bar. He saw a flash of brightly colored ribbon. “Wait, you still have them?”

“Are we still talking about this?” Hide closed his bag in a huff.

“Hide, did you even talk to her?”

“I did. That's how I know I've got no chance. Can I try that?”

Kaneki passed him the coffee and took a few fries from their cup. It was unusual to see Hide this worked up over something that wasn't a video game or the top 40. Kaneki took the coffee back from Hide after he had a sip and held it in his lap with both hands. He wished that he was better at these sort of things.

“If she's not interested in you, then she can't be that great,” Kaneki said softly. He tipped his head back to drink the coffee, but he could tell that Hide was staring at him again. Something hard poked him in the arm.

“Here,” Hide prodded him again with the box of chocolates, “Eat these.”

“I couldn't!” Kaneki tried to refuse but Hide left them laying on his lap.

“I sure as hell don't want them. If you don't eat 'em, they're going in the trash.” Hide leaned back on the bench. He had stopped eating and gazed out into the distance.

Kaneki balanced the coffee can on the arm of the bench and nervously picked up the box. It was small, dark brown and rectangular. The ribbons tying it shut were silver and bright blue. He glanced up once more at Hide, who was still looking away, and untied the ribbons.

The chocolates were obviously homemade. They were round and a bit lumpy on the bottom, but attractively drizzled with stripes of darker chocolate. Kaneki lifted one to his mouth and saw Hide's eyes follow the movement.

“Hide! These are really good!”

“Don't sound so shocked!” Hide flushed with embarrassment.

"No, it figures that you would be good at something like this," Kaneki picked up another chocolate, "You have all these ridiculous hobbies, but you're really good at whatever you get serious about.”

“...I'm glad you like them.”

Kaneki ate another chocolate and wondered about the girl that they had been made for. What kind of person would turn Hide, who almost never touched a stove, into an aspiring chocolatier? Whoever she was, she surely didn't appreciate him. Kaneki was certain that he had been the only person to notice the burn on Hide's wrist. He wouldn't ask Hide about it, but to know that there was some girl out there who--

Kaneki paused with another chocolate halfway to his mouth.

_I'm jealous._

 


	2. Trick-or-Treating (autumn)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have a cameo in this- I'm the person way off in the distance holding a boom box on my shoulder. I am blasting "Closer" by Tegan and Sara and busting some sweet moves.

"I knew I shouldn't have put too much work into this." Kaneki tugged with remorse at the collar of his dark green cloak. "Nobody knew who I was."

"Well, _I_ knew. And isn't that what really counts?" Hide said as he inspected a full-sized candy bar with one eye.

"I guess." Kaneki glanced up as he heard a noisy group of people pass by the outside of their hiding place. He and Hide were crouched among the shrubbery outside of someone's home, mostly hidden by the darkness. Hiding on other people's property was something that Kaneki generally disapproved of, but he found himself inclined towards the mischievous spirit of the holiday. This was likely Hide's influence.

"When are you going to take that thing off?" Kaneki snapped the elastic of Hide's black eyepatch. Hide stuck his tongue out at him and peeled open the candy wrapper.

"Never. This is just my life now. A pirate's life for me."

"I don't think pirates wore crop tops." It wasn't really a crop top. Hide had put together his costume with items found at a thrift store. The loose, white blouse with flowing sleeves that he wore was a little short and exposed his stomach when he stretched his arms above his head.

"I don't think hobbits wore shoes."

"I'm not taking off my shoes."

"Well, I'm not taking off my eyepatch. Unless-" Hide brandished the candy bar at him- "Ye wish to challenge me to a duel?"

Kaneki shuffled around in his candy bag (a pillowcase borrowed from Hide) and retrieved a long, thin package of sour candy. He thrust it out at Hide and tapped his candy bar.

"You will rue the day that you challenged me, Captain Crop-Top!”

Hide gasped dramatically and clutched at his heart. "Such betrayal! You will pay dearly for your insubordination, First Mate Hobbit-Shoes!"

" _En garde!_ "

They stabbed at each other with their candy. Hide soon gave up on using his candy sword and stuck it in his mouth, reaching instead for his foam sword. Not being able to match the reach of the foam sword, Kaneki leaned away from Hide and bombarded him with handfuls of candy. Hide shrieked at the poor treatment of such perfectly edible confections and tackled Kaneki onto the ground.

"Surrender!" Hide yelled.

"Never!" Kaneki smacked his face with more candy.

"Stop throwing our beautiful treasure!" Hide wailed and grabbed Kaneki's wrists, pinning them on either side of his head. Kaneki tried to wriggle free but to no avail; Hide had the obvious physical advantage from years of being on the track and field team. His weight was solid on top of Kaneki where they lay in the grass, legs tangled together.

_Oh._

Kaneki stilled underneath him. Hide fell silent and he seemed to reach the same conclusion: they extremely close. This would usually be the part where Hide would take the initiative and end the awkward silence with a terrible joke. Instead, he remained quiet.

"I..." Kaneki's mouth opened and then closed again as he failed to say anything. He watched Hide's gaze flick down to his lips and then slowly rise back up to meet his eyes. Hide's hands shifted, releasing Kaneki's wrists and interlacing their fingers.

Kaneki was on the verge of naming the strange feeling in his stomach when a light came on inside the house. This was followed by a clatter as someone fumbled with the front door's locks and--

"C'mon!"

Hide's weight was gone and Kaneki was suddenly vertical and sprinting away from the house, following the pull of Hide's hand in his own. The shouting faded with distance behind them, but neither of them slowed. Kaneki ran, too dizzy to figure out where they were going and trusting Hide to lead them. He could only focus on the slap of his shoes against the pavement and the wild pounding of his heart.

 


	3. Visiting Festival Vendors (winter)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hide's talking about the Evangelion manga.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's an anxiety attack in this

 "Can we try a different one?”

“We're already halfway there,” Hide pointed out. They had been in line at the taiyaki stall for twelve minutes already. It was Christmas Eve, so of course everything was packed.

"I know, but...” They were crowded close together by the other festival-goers and Kaneki shifted so that their shoulders pressed. Hide's presence was like a touchstone when everything else was too noisy and moving too quickly.

"Hey, are you alright?”

"Yeah.” Kaneki nodded stiffly while looking somewhere near their feet. Hide noticed that his knees were starting to tremble. “I'm f-fine.”

Hide frowned and inclined his head towards Kaneki's ear. “We can go, if you want to,” he said softly.

“N-no, it-t... nm...” Kaneki trailed off into silence. His cheeks began to color and tears welled in his eyes.

“Kaneki? Shit-- okay, let's go.” Hide slipped his hand into Kaneki's and pulled him out of the queue.

Hide quickly scanned the brightly lit area for somewhere dark. He lead them away from the festival and down a path towards the lake. The air was cooler and more calm over here, the noise and lights blocked by the trees. They passed a few people and then were alone, now close enough to the dock that they were walking on a path of wooden planks instead of a sidewalk.

“How're you doing, buddy?” Hide squeezed Kaneki's hand.

Kaneki let go and didn't meet Hide's eyes. He was still staring down at the ground and now his shoulders were shaking. Not a good sign.

“Hey, they have swan boats over here!” Hide said cheerily. “Do you think we can sneak on one right now?”

“S-sorry,” Kaneki said, his voice tight. He hiccuped and his breaths came in shorter bursts as his chest began to heave. His knees finally gave out, legs crumpling beneath him.

“You're okay, you're fine.” Hide kept his voice level and calm. He crouched down next to Kaneki and grasped his shoulder to help keep him upright. Kaneki hadn't had an anxiety attack in a while and this shaping up to be a bad one. “We can go to my place and watch a movie. I've got a new one with aliens that I picked just for you because the costumes are so bad that-”

Kaneki choked on a sob. His breathing was loud and erratic.

“Kaneki, you need to slow down.” Hide could feel his own pulse racing but he focused instead on Kaneki's red-rimmed eyes. “Look at me. Please, I need you to follow my breathing.”

Hide leaned in close and cupped Kaneki's face in his hands. His cheeks were wet and he gasped for air, his face now quickly losing its color.

“I'm so sorry, Kaneki,” Hide pressed their foreheads together and braced himself, “I saw this on TV, once.”

That was the only warning Kaneki received before Hide kissed him. The world that had been moving by so quickly, now slowed around them. All of his focus tunneled in on the warmth from Hide's hands and the softness of his lips. The festival lights in the distance became starlight behind his eyelids and for a brief moment there was only himself and Hide and the great expanse of the night sky.

“So,” Kaneki said quietly, his throat raw, when Hide pulled away. He was tired and his chest ached even though he was breathing slowly now. “Like a... medical drama?”

“No,” Hide confessed, “Like an anime.”

“Awful.” Kaneki leaned heavily against Hide and rested his head on his shoulder. Hide rubbed his hands up and down his back.

“I'm sorry I'm like this,” Kaneki would say later when they were both falling asleep on the futons laid out in front of the TV.

“I'm sorry that I like making you watch terrible movies,” Hide would say as he wrapped a corner of the blanket around his hand so that he wouldn't think about holding Kaneki's. “Really, you're the one who's got it worse here.”

 


	4. Ice Cream on a Hot Day (summer)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> haha this is super late bc I've been freaking out for an entire week. I can't believe Hide saved 2017

Kaneki's apartment didn't have air conditioning so Hide had cleverly engineered one. He purchased some ice from the closest konbini and placed it in a shallow bowl in front of the small, oscillating fan that sat on the coffee table. They sat on the floor in front of its path. The sliding door to the porch was left open with the hopes of inviting a breeze inside, but their hopes were mostly with the bowl of ice and the ice cream bars that Hide had also brought back from the store.

Kaneki sighed and licked at his ice cream before it could drip on his hand. If Hide weren't here, then he could have taken his shirt off by now. It would be weird to do it in front of him, right? He glanced sideways at Hide. He instantly regretted doing so as he had looked over just in time to see Hide bite off a chunk of his own ice cream.

 _Biting into frozen things is proof of a chaotic-evil alignment,_ Kaneki thought as he shivered. Hide bit off another chunk and he shivered again.

“Problem?” Hide said smugly. He ran his tongue over his teeth.

“Jerk.” Kaneki frowned and licked his ice cream with great solemnity.

“I'm just helping you out. Don't you feel cooler?”

“No, I feel like my skin is itching.”

“Aww, don't be like that,” Hide said before taking another bite of ice cream. However, this time he bit too close to the stick. The half of the ice cream not in his mouth fell away and Hide made a distressed noise as he quickly caught it in his other hand. He groaned unhappily, mouth still full of ice cream, and leaned forward to drop the piece in his hand into the ice bowl.

“That's what you get,” Kaneki said with an imitation of Hide's cocky grin. Hide made a muffled sound of outrage and swallowed.

“Since I lost mine, you should share yours.” Hide wriggled his sticky fingers threateningly.

“No way!” Kaneki jerked his arm away. He succeeded both in evading Hide and in dripping ice cream down his hand. Kaneki quickly licked a stripe up his forearm and over his fingers. It was while he was sucking melted ice cream off the base of the bar that he noticed that Hide had gone uncharacteristically quiet.

Hide, whose skin had already been flushed from the heat, was blushing red and avidly watching at Kaneki. When their eyes met, Hide stared back at him and the intensity in his gaze made Kaneki keenly aware of what he was doing. They broke the tension at the same time. Kaneki moved the ice cream away from his mouth and Hide got up and went into the kitchen to wash his hands in the sink.

Kaneki bit back a frustrated groan and dropped the last of his ice cream into the bowl with Hide's. He was willing to admit that things had been changing in their relationship for a while, but the weird energy between them had escalated after they started college a few months ago. Or maybe it hadn't. Kaneki had yet to discredit the suspicion that maybe this was all just in his head.

 _Don't be weird_ , Kaneki told himself as he followed Hide into the kitchen. Hide moved aside to dry his hands on the dish towel as Kaneki took his turn to wash up.

“Are we...” Hide didn't finish.

Kaneki turned off the tap and looked at him. Hide's expression shifted to 'politely neutral.'

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Hide asked instead. Kaneki was envious of how easily he could stretch a smile on his face and make it seem natural.

“Do _you_ want to watch a movie?” Kaneki tugged on the towel in Hide's hands.

“Sure?” Hide was still wearing his smile. “Not much else to do in this heat.”

“So, then,” Kaneki tried to keep from stumbling over his words, “If it wasn't hot out, would you be more interested in, um, doing something else?”

“Uh. Maybe?”

“It's just-- I can understand how watching a movie would be more of a last-resort activity. A backup activity, if you will,” Kaneki reasoned as he twisted the towel in his hands. He visualized every word he spoke as a scoop of graveyard dirt that would be shoveled onto his coffin.

“I like movies.” Hide had stopped smiling. He was looking at Kaneki with concern and somehow that was even worse. Kaneki busied himself with hanging the dish towel back where it belonged.

“You should do what you want.” Kaneki's voice was surprisingly steady as he blinked back tears. His stomach felt as though it were being filled with lead. “You shouldn't do something just because you feel like you have to. Or like you need to.”

“Kaneki--”

“Not just because I'm pathetic and have these- these _fits_ and rely on you too much.”

“You're not pathetic. And it's fine that you have panic attacks. And... I actually wish that you would rely on me _more_.” Hide took Kaneki's hands in his own. He rubbed his thumbs over his knuckles.

“I think I'm in love with you,” Kaneki said in a rush. He felt awful and sick. “I think I have been for a while. And I- I don't know. I'm sorry that it's me.”

“ _Kaneki._ ”

The way Hide said his name made Kaneki flinch. He squeezed his eyes shut and tears rolled down his face.

“It's you.”

When Hide didn't elaborate, Kaneki hesitantly opened his eyes.

“What's me?” he asked fearfully.

“You said I should do what I want,” Hide said with flushed cheeks and bright eyes. “I want you.”

“You... want to do me? I- I mean-!” Kaneki made a small despairing sound and buried his face in his hands. Rather, he tried to do so but Hide didn't let go and Kaneki ended up pressing two pairs of hands to his forehead to hide behind.

“That's, uh, a conversation for later. I think.”

His serious reply made Kaneki turn even more red with embarrassment. Hide gently tugged their hands back down and leaned into Kaneki's space. His voice dropped in volume.

“Maybe for now we could just try kissing?”

“Ohgod.” Kaneki sounded as though he was about to be ill.

“No?” Hide started to pull back, worried that he had somehow read him wrong, but Kaneki squeezed his hands.

“N-no! I mean, _yes_ , but-!” Kaneki looked shyly up at him from under his dark bangs. His eyes were still wet. “I- I didn't expect to get this far. I don't-- Are you sure?”

“Kaneki, I _know_ that I'm in love with you,” Hide asserted in that same quiet voice, “And I really want to watch a movie with you. And keep holding hands because this is nice. And also kiss you.”

“Alright,” Kaneki said faintly. “I'm sorry that my palms are sweaty.”

“Well, I'm sorry that I'm about to make it hard to breathe.”

“Wait, wha-”

Hide kissed him squarely on the mouth and Kaneki's breath caught in his throat.

_Oh._

 


End file.
